Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire



Synopsis: When Rini lands with a literal splash in the pond behind Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, the last thing she expects to find is that her mother, Sumi, died years before Rini was even conceived. But Rini can’t let Reality get in the way of her quest – not when she has an entire world to save! (Much more common than one would suppose.)
If she can't find a way to restore her mother, Rini will have more than a world to save: she will never have been born in the first place. And in a world without magic, she doesn’t have long before Reality notices her existence and washes her away. Good thing the student body is well-acquainted with quests...

A tale of friendship, baking, and derring-do.



Review: I love the Wayward Children series so much. Beneath the Sugar Sky is the third installment in this fantasy series. We meet Rini, who is the daughter of a past character, and she is on a quest to save herself from disappearing. So far, this is my least favorite book in the series, and that’s largely because of Rini’s personality. Her dialogue and actions made her seem more childish than she really was. She’s a teenager, but she acts much younger than that. I know this is because she grew up in a nonsense world, so she has that quality about her. Still, I quickly grew tired of her in pretty much every way. I did enjoy seeing the other characters struggle with interacting with Rini because that’s how I felt for much of the story.


One thing I loved is that Beneath the Sugar Sky gives us a look into a few different worlds, and Kade helps the reader better understand how these worlds function. Much of the story takes place is the world of Confection, and I loved how Seanan made everything feel vivid while our characters explored. For how bright Confection is, there are some darker elements in Beneath the Sugar Sky. A character in Beneath the Sugar Sky is a fat athlete, and she is wonderful. The story is told from her perspective, and we get to see how she mentally breaks down what society has told her about being fat, and how ashamed she should be. This is handled so well, and I appreciated how Seanan included it into her story.


A great addition to one of my favorite series.


4 howls

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